


Mother's Day

by loveinisolation



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, mention of canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-17
Updated: 2013-05-17
Packaged: 2017-12-12 04:23:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/807193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveinisolation/pseuds/loveinisolation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first Mother's Day after Mama Stilinski dies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mother's Day

**Author's Note:**

> Blame Julia. (As usual.)

It’s only been a few months – hardly even long enough for people to have stopped asking daily how he’s holding up. Sometimes (more often than he would like to admit)he still thinks he hears her coming home; when he’s been home alone for his usual hour and the house creaks or a garage door opens next door there’s still a moment where he thinks it’s her before his brain catches up with reality.

It’s almost like losing her all over again every time.

The reaction lessens over time; the clenching in his heart when he remembers that she’s gone dulls to a low throb when something dares to trigger a memory. It won’t ever leave—he’ll forever carry that faded ache in his chest—but over time he learns to live with it: to function with a heart that’s been broken too badly at such a young age to ever fully heal.

It somehow isn’t surprising that they both forget. It was always the kind of day that would sneak up without preamble – a day that passed in chocolate and flowers bought last minute but given with all the love in the world – and this year is no different.

His dad heads off to work Sunday morning before he’s even awake. It’s nearing noon by the time he crawls out from under the covers and plunks down in front of the TV, flipping on the game console and snatching up the controller to while away the afternoon.

It isn’t until hours later that he becomes bored with the game and switches over to flipping aimlessly through television channels, eventually settling on a random movie – the kind of mediocre, low-budget thing that for some reason always plays in the middle of Sunday afternoons.  It doesn’t take long for the movie’s focus to become blatantly clear: the broken family managing to pull it all together and _un_ break – to mend fences and realize how much they have in each other – just in time to celebrate Mother’s Day together as a family.

And there it is: the stark reminder that his family is broken too, but unlike the family in the movie there is no chance for it to ever be whole again. They will never heal completely no matter how hard they try. Maybe they’ll come close – maybe they’ll eventually integrate others into their little world and create a new family – but it will never be the same; it will never be like it was before.  

The movie cuts to a commercial – that too depicting a happy, smiling family celebrating with gifts and time spent together – and he can’t quite figure out how he had missed all of it before. How he had possibly not known that the day dedicated to the person he misses most has snuck up on him once again, this time bringing fresh heartache with it.

He watches the rest of the movie curled up in ball, hugging himself tightly like he’s trying to keep himself from falling apart altogether. Maybe he is.

His dad arrives home just after five looking haggard and worn, a bouquet of spring flowers hanging sadly from his hand.

“I thought I forgot,” he says, voice small. Smaller than it has ever been. “The guys at the station mentioned it as I was leaving, and I thought I had forgotten.  I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away.” He holds up the flowers – already wilting in the heat of the May afternoon – and looks between them and his son, still curled on the couch.

They find a vase, carefully put the flowers in and arrange them just so, as though awaiting the arrival of the person they are meant for even though they know she’ll never come. 


End file.
